Life is Healthy

If you’re a woman and want to lose a lot of weight, there’s something I need to tell you. You might stop having your period for awhile or forever. It’s not something people tell you, but it needs to be talked about. I wrote about it on Refuse to Regain today (See “The Mystery of Aunt Flo.”)

Long story short: I got mine yesterday after a 3-year, 7-month, 2-day absence. Uffdah.

However, on the lighter side of menses, or the lack thereof, here’s a blog I wrote on ZenBagLady in March 2007 when my lack-of-period issue first became apparent.

Why, oh why, does that guy at the gym not wear pants that fit and spare himself the indignity of his pants falling down when he gets off the elliptical? I got a front-row view of butt crack this morning, and not the good kind of butt crack. It’s never the drop-dead-hunky guys in the weight room who drop their drawers.

Karma or God or Mother Nature – one of the three or maybe all three – are messing with my body in a big way. I’m in a chronic state of bloat and crabby. I’m two months into no period (and no, I’m not pregnant) and while that might seem like a blessing, it’s really a pain in the butt because I have too much of the bitch hormone and not enough of the ovulating hormone flowing through my body. I’d really feel better if I just bled.

My doctor says it’s probably a combination of increased exercise and weight loss catching up with me. Whatever.

I remember when I first learned of the menses. It was in fifth grade. One day, with no warning, our teacher, Miss Nissen, told the boys they had to go to Mr. Kennedy’s room because the girls were going to see a movie made just for them. Apparently I’d brought home a permission slip and my mother signed it, but hey, I was just doing what I was told. I never read the fine print.

That day I went from a little girl wondering if she’d play jump rope or four square at recess to a pre-pubescent vowing she’d never have children.

Talk about a delusional movie. The girl in the film looked nothing like me. She was at least 16, tall, long brown hair, perfect eyebrows, and she wore cotton dresses and smiled incessantly. I was 11 years old, wore Wranglers and still took baths with Mr. Bubble.

I was totally confused. Blood? Did they say blood? I was going to bleed from where exactly? And I was going to SMILE about it? Riiiiiight.

My friends and I gathered at the swings during recess while the boys hung around the periphery asking what the movie was about. We didn’t understand it ourselves, let alone be able to explain it to boys who still thought punching us in the arm was a sign of affection, so we stayed cloistered together, looking up only to see if a boy had infiltrated our space.

We were different now, almost women. We’d just learned the mystery of life. Well, at least part of the mystery of life. The school nurse refused to answer Wendy’s question – Where do babies come from? “Does it have something to do with the way one cow jumps on top of another?” she asked.

Lora suggested maybe our belly buttons had something to do with it. Someone else said she’d heard if a boy sticks his tongue in your mouth you’d get pregnant. The farm girls knew better, but they still hadn’t figured out the blood part. That’s what had us the most confused.

It still has me confused. From the first time I saw blood on my panties for the first time at age 14 and rolled my eyes and thought, “Oh great, here we go,” to now when I see no blood on my panties and think, “Oh great, here we go,” the “mystery of life” is still a great mystery.